Missing children website relaunched

An official website to help find missing and abducted children from the UK has been relaunched by the police's specialist child protection agency.

Police forces will use the site - www.missingkids.co.uk - to circulate up-to-date photographs of and information about youngsters who have been missing for days, months or years.

The website, run by the Child Exploitation and Online Protection centre (Ceop), allows the public to download posters, and in some cases includes age-progression images showing how missing children may have changed as they grow older.

The charity Parents and Abducted Children Together (Pact) hailed the new redesigned website as a long-overdue national approach to the problem.

Lady Catherine Meyer, founder and chief executive of Pact, said: "With over 130,000 children going missing in the UK each year - more than one every five minutes - I am delighted to announce this major breakthrough in Pact's decade-long campaign to reform the way we tackle this tragic issue.

"With the re-launch of the Missingkids website, and Ceop's taking responsibility for missing and abducted children, we finally have the tools to bring hope to those whose children have gone missing or been abducted.

"The important thing now is to raise public awareness of the website."

A reception hosted by Home Secretary Theresa May will be held at 10 Downing Street on Wednesday to mark International Missing Children's Day.

PA